


Just Someone I Used to Know

by Vinvalen



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:31:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3431336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinvalen/pseuds/Vinvalen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift fic for HerraDurra1, inspired by her magnificent 'Jigsaw' 'verse.<br/>Vincent looks through cold case files, stirring memories of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Someone I Used to Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [herradurra1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/herradurra1/gifts).



Spending the better part of thirty years in a coffin tended to have the effect of giving one an entirely new perspective on the passing of time, thus Vincent wouldn’t have counted himself as someone easily bored. And yet here he was, kicked back in his office at WRO headquarters, yawning and drumming the tips of his gauntlet’s claws absently upon a scrap of titanium that protected his work desk.

 

_“You ain’t gonna have a fuckin’ paycheck left when Reeve gets done makin’ ya replace his furniture,” Cid had snarked as he tossed the small, leftover square of hull plating to him. “An’ I got shit like this layin’ around to the point of gods-damned trippin’ over it.”_

 

Thinking of Cid and his often not-so-subtle attempts at ‘fixing things’, made Vincent smile. The pilot just couldn’t let something broken stay that way if there was anything at all he could possibly do about it…and that included Vincent himself. Not that it always worked, but Cid’s heart was in the right place and he meant well. Vincent executed a rather impressive metallic drumroll in his best friend’s honor, making a mental note to tell the pilot how his habit of tapping on his gift when concentrating had the added benefit of driving Rufus Shinra to distraction whenever he visited.

 

Vincent glanced at the clock positioned above and to the left of his desk, not surprised to find it seemed almost as bored as himself as it sluggishly ticked away. Of course Reeve would insist on old-fashioned, gear-driven clocks in the office, rather than the standard chronometers found everywhere else. Vincent found them a pleasant reminder of the past, when so many things were not. Reeve, glad to find someone else who shared his appreciation of the clocks, had then built one and gave it to him and Rude as a belated wedding present.

 

“It’s definitely time to find something constructive to do with myself when I start assigning sentience to an assortment of gears,” he said to the clock, glad Reeve wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity to take offense.

 

And so Vincent wandered down to Reno’s office with the intent of entertaining himself by going through a few of the cold case files. He wouldn’t be in anyone’s way while Rude and Reno were out on assignment for the afternoon, and Reeve was currently occupied in some new electronic project Vincent would find about soon enough. He stepped out long enough to fetch a fresh cup of coffee before settling behind Reno’s desk and pulled open the appropriate file drawer. What immediately drew his attention, however, was something he’d not expected to find there.

 

File bundles…files that gave off the scent of mildew and old dust. The edges of the original folders within them were still intact, but their edges had long since began crumbling away and bound by rotting rubber bands. Vincent felt something within himself shift, growing cold as his demons stirred restlessly. He sincerely hoped Reno was merely taking an interest in history for its own sake and that the bodies buried and ignored by the former regime were not being exhumed.

 

_All deities former and current help you, Rufus Shinra, if you are resurrecting things best left to rest in peace._ Vincent began sorting through the bundles, starting with the oldest date he could find. Each folder was neatly slotted in place by a series of numbers and a faded, red-inked stamp reading simply: ‘DECEASED’.

 

Old friends and older enemies, their pictures showing signs of losing the battle against time and whose edges blurred as if even these facsimiles of the people they portrayed were being reclaimed by the Lifestream.

 

Gast Faremis.   
Ifalna.

 

Aerith, as a newborn and as she became a toddler. A few years later, the cataloged images gapped abruptly, skipping ahead to those of later years, obviously captured with Turk surveillance equipment. In the final one, Aerith knelt in her church, surrounded by flowers, smiling at something unknowable. For several minutes, Vincent sat simply remembering her before finally closing the folder, laying it carefully aside and opening another.

 

Grimoire Valentine. Vincent’s hand hesitated upon the pages for only a moment before he moved it aside and went on to the next.

 

Sephiroth   
Zack Fair   
Angeal Hewley

 

Genesis Rhapsodos…though that one’s ultimate fate remained a question mark in everyone’s mind. He understood perfectly why this particular file would capture Reno’s interest. Sometimes ‘death’ was a little too convenient, and it didn’t pay to assume too much.

 

A wry smile twisted Vincent’s mouth. He’d found he rather enjoyed being an ‘inconvenience’ when circumstances warranted. He found it no coincidence that Hojo immediately sprang to mind, nor that the despised scientist’s folder was on top of the stack when he reached for another file. He laid it aside almost impatiently. There was nothing there of interest to him anymore, other than the satisfaction of that red ink stamped on the folder’s cover.

 

He picked up the next. He’d actually expected to find it sooner, but whoever had handled the binder last was not concerned with maintaining its contents in alphabetical order with the others. _Reno, probably,_ Vincent thought almost absently. _His mind always travels on a different track than anyone else’s._

 

Crescent, Lucrecia. S-27715462.

 

He waited for the image of her staring back at him to bring the old, familiar pain and despair, even anger…or the bitterness of betrayal.

 

But there was nothing.

 

Looking down upon the faded photograph brought only the sense of a closed chapter in his life, and a realization of how very far he had come from the person he had once been.

 

Vincent really wasn’t surprised when a welcome, beloved presence leaned against the back of his chair and large, and warm hands settled on his shoulders. Understanding eyes gazed down at the open folder he held.

 

Anyone else might have abruptly closed the binder, made hurried excuses or an attempt to change the subject. Vincent was too old for such nonsense…and Lucrecia’s picture displayed in his lover’s presence didn’t make him uncomfortable as it once might have. It was a welcome epiphany to realize he felt nothing at all when he looked at her now.

 

“You okay, babe?” Rude asked, and in his voice was everything Vincent had never heard in hers, not even in the aftermath of Hojo’s depredations.

 

Rude…infinite in patience and faith in him. A never-failing beacon casting his light upon Vincent’s darkness, illuminating his deepest shadows.

 

“Yeah.” Vincent replied, flipping the file closed and fitting it back into its place within the aging binder. Then he tipped his head back against Rude’s body and gazed at him upside down, smiling. “Never better.”


End file.
